Overland

I'm with you. To me, it seems like a flexible track for a curtain that covers both the door and the toilet area should be standard. You need someplace to stash a towel - and keeping the door dry so that it doesn't drip all over the floor when you open it seems like a must.

What they did for Buzzy is really nice looking, but obviously that hardware is expensive. What they've done in the past is to use a flexible track, so you might ask them about those and why they don't do that anymore. You might try here if you're looking for something less expensive...http://www.curtain-tracks.com If you want the same look as what Buzzy has, you might take a look at www.sea-dog.com or another marine supplier and see if you can piece together what they did and then install it yourself.

The military style scepter or classic jerry can is sort of the standard for the overland crowd, with the rotopax coming in a close second. I've always wondered why more people don't use the 5 gallon utility jugs that they use for off road racing. There's got to be a reason that the racing crowd prefers those over jerry cans, though I don't know what that would be.

You should be very proud of that design. Frankly, I think you've added something important to the Oliver community. Not only is your trailer beautiful, but as far as I know, no one has thought of doing a wrap on the entire trailer before. It's a fantastic idea and I strongly suspect that you won't be the last person to do this. Like you say, the design potential is infinite, and equally important is that we now know that there's an easy way to get a custom color on these trailers without painting or asking Oliver to revamp their production line. In fact, I could see Oliver getting into the custom wrap business just so they can offer different colors. I'd love to see some close ups of how the wrap works around tight areas, seams, corners, trim pieces, etc.

Wow, looks nice! It's great to know that Oliver cares about things like this.

Does anyone know the brand of shade Oliver uses?

Big thumbs up - that's awesome! Really nice job.

I'd love to see them too. That's something we asked Oliver about on our factory visit and they told us the same thing. I asked if they could order some in grey or dark bronze or something so that it just didn't look like a mismatch, and Robert said he'd look into it. To me, the off-white against the bright white of the interior makes them look old and yellowed.

Another thing you can do is go to the trackpad control panel and set it to use a two-finger tap in place of the command-shift. I actually use an extension for Mac called jitouch that really expands on all the shortcuts you can use on the trackpad. After an hour of using it, I was hooked - it's become indispensable. http://www.jitouch.com/trackpad/

I'm not super familiar with XP. We looked at their stuff at overland expo last year and it all looked nice - very similar to Earth Cruisers in style and finish I thought. But we weren't looking at slide ins so didn't spend too much time looking at them. On the quality of the workmanship between the hulls, I admit that I'm picky about that stuff. I do residential architecture, and the difference between a sub who runs everything nice and neat, and pays attention to all those details vs. the ones who don't is night and day to me. But those guys are rare - and outside of the city, just plain nonexistent.

Can someone explain to me how these lines are run? I'm guessing from these photos that there is an exterior pipe that runs the length of the trailer and then two lines T off from that to supply the water heater/furnace and cooktop. So two penetrations to the hull for gas, which sounds reasonable. Is the exterior pipe cast iron or copper or something else? Is there any reason that these interior lines are solid copper and not flexible, either braided hose or a flexible stainless connector like you'd have in your house? Also, what's up with the bottom of those cabinets in that photo? Do we need to donate a new saw blade to Oliver? As nicely finished as these trailers are on the outside, some of the stuff I see between the hulls looks pretty janky.

I guess what I don't get is why links on this website should behave differently than every other link on the internet. Like everyone else, if I click on a link, I know what's going to happen. I think it would be confusing if some people start coding their links and then suddenly some links do one thing and then some another. You'd end up right clicking on everything anyway because you wouldn't know which links opened in a new tab and which didn't, because you're never going to get everyone to follow along. And frankly, I personally wouldn't even want links to automatically open in new tabs. I would agree that it might be useful to have an individual preference setting to open links in a new tab, and that way individuals like you can customize how the site behaves for them. But I disagree that the site should be changed to allow a poster to force on everyone a behavior that no one expects and not everyone wants; and for the same reasons, nor do I think it's wise to manually add that behavior to a link. Just my 2¢.

I guess option B would be to right click on the link if you want it to open in a new tab.

Wasn't someone here going to order a net from these guys? http://protectatow.tripod.com/trailers.htm

Some people will do an offset hitch of the front for that reason. The receiver goes toward the passenger side so that the driver can see around the trailer.

The EZ tug looks like a nice solution since it stays with the trailer. I can see it being useful turning the trailer around if you're being adventurous and find yourself down a dead end trail. Unfortunately, it looks like it's only rated for 3000lbs.

The biggest drawback of the tire cover is that it won't cover a full size spare. For that reason, we'll probably just buy a fabric cover and store the FG one for some future owner. But I agree with all the positives. I guess if requested, Oliver would mount the license plate and light to the side. In a perfect world, I'd prefer the spare to be somewhere else entirely. I'd rather have that weight more centrally located, underneath maybe - but of course there's ground clearance to consider as well, so like most everything else there's a balance to be weighed.

I've seen plastic toilet steps for children which might be the trick with the nature's head.

Absolutely! The adventure is what's going to keep us young, hopefully well beyond retirement. I guess I should have said active rather than younger, but really it's the same I think.

John, I don't know if you'll be able to get Oliver to build a different suspension - though I'd line up right behind you if they did. The good news on that front is that the Oliver suspension is built on a subframe that can be easily detached, and therefore replaced with whatever suspension you wish to have built. That's money of course, but if you want what you want... Same is true for the toilet. You can always just get your Oliver and then swap out whatever you want. Tanks of various sizes are easy to find, and the pex connections easy to DIY. I do think that the cassette option would have been difficult only because of where the toilet sits relative to the curves of the trailer; i.e., I'm not sure you could get an access door where you'd want it. Anyway, I do sense that the RV and travel trailer world is undergoing something of a transformation at the moment. The traditional travel trailer market is for retired highway cruisers camping with hookups - and that's the context in which the two Olivers were designed. The market is shifting though to younger buyers who are looking for a bit more adventure. It's lucky that the Olivers are built tough enough that people like us would even consider them, but unfortunate that the fiberglass construction limits the requests they can accommodate. I'd be all over an Oliver "Expedition" package with the features we'd like to see, even if it's a only light version of what we really want. Who knows, maybe there are enough of us here already to make it happen.

I do like the 10-speed, though I have the same concern. But what we're really waiting for is the new Raptor.

So long as we're talking bout the existing tanks, located toward the center, I think you're correct. But if you add weight towards the ends of the trailer, regardless of how high its placed, then you really will alter the stability of the trailer. Here's a good demonstration of that... I actually find trailer dynamics to be pretty interesting. The fact that you're towing the trailer from a hitch rather than like a fifth wheel changes the game entirely, since you've created a double pendulum. And the dynamics of a double pendulum are chaotic; so when towing, you're essentially just trying to keep everything within the tipping point of it all going haywire. Fun! The key is in keeping the energy of the pendulum lower than the tipping point, which of course means controlling its inertia through speed, mass and distribution of mass. If you're interested, here are some good pages on trailer dynamics... http://caravanandmotorhomebooks.com/caravan-dynamics/ https://caravanchronicles.com/guides/understanding-the-dynamics-of-towing/ It's amazing how complex it is. One of the really interesting things about a high yaw inertia is that though it's dangerous once in motion, so long as it's under control it makes the trailer feel very stable, because of course the weight actually resists sway. Once you get it going, though... That makes me a little nervous when people talk about how stable Olivers are, lol. But in truth, I think even the Legacy II is compact enough that it can't possibly have the same yaw inertia as the big boys. If I start to get nervous about it, I just look at this photo and I'm back in my happy place...

I agree, and prefer my second idea for that reason. Like I said, putting a water tank where the black tank currently sits isn't the greatest place for all that weight. It would have a big effect on the yaw inertia, which is the biggest factor in trailer stability. At least the weight would be on the front though. Veering way off topic, but it's the same reason I wish Oliver had a different solution for the spare tire instead of hanging it off the back. Anyway, I don't think increasing the size of the current tanks would have too much effect on stability. More weight, of course, but the effect on yaw would be negligible I'd think, and in fact, having a bit more weight at the bottom would lower the overall COG. If you could add, say 5 gallons capacity, that's about 40lbs or so. Replacing the black tank with fresh water, on the other hand, would be around 150lbs, and in a poor location. But if you travel with empty tanks, then no problem. Fill up last minute before heading out to the wilderness.

I'm going for full Troublemaker Status here, but thinking about it even more, I'm wondering if by eliminating the black tank, you couldn't get larger tanks (plural), in their current location. The reason I think that is that the waste line from the black tank is a straight shot from front to back, while the grey tank waste comes out the back of the tank and elbows over to connect to the main waste line. Well, without the black tank, you don't need that front to back waste line, which takes up it looks like 4"-6" or so under the floor. So without it, you could increase the width of the other two tanks, which would add a substantial amount to either or both, depending on how you wanted to split the difference.

Well, I'm not sure I buy that. I mean, from the photos I have, the black tank is easily accessible from the large access panel in the font seat of the dinette. In fact, it looks like that's how you'd remove it for service if needed. So to say that the space can't even be used for storage is a bit of a stretch. Maybe they mean externally, but certainly the space can be accessed from the inside. And they already have water running to it - for the cleanout - so there's room in there to get water. In fact, looking at it, I don't see what the big deal is to have it all installed later if someone were to change their mind. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems straightforward to me. Here's a photo, looking through the access panel at the dinette. You can see the blue cleanout line to the left and of course the waste line to the right. Take the waste line and the black tank out, and you've got a decent amount of space there to do with what you want. Or, like I say, put in a secondary fresh water tank. Of course a water tank in that location isn't the best from a weight distribution standpoint, so that's something that should really be considered.